1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to the management of visitors to a website and, more particularly, to a system and method for increasing the activity of a website user through the use of an incentive-based website architecture.
2. Description of the Related Art
The recent explosion in the user of the World Wide Web (hereinafter “the web”) has created numerous opportunities for content providers such as advertisers and sellers of products and services to display and sell to consumers. It is becoming apparent, however, that advertising and sales techniques that in the past were practiced by virtually all advertisers and sellers do not necessarily apply to advertising and sales on the web.
In a typical “bricks and mortar” sales location, a salesperson often will have in mind certain products that they wish to actively “push” to consumers. Their goal is to sell as many of the products as possible at the highest margin possible. However, the salesperson may be willing to sacrifice some of the sales margin in order to make a sale and/or in order to sell multiple units of the product. Thus, the salesperson will “lead” the customer down a “path” that will ideally result in maximum sales units at a maximum price, but which path is replete with numerous branches that, from the salesperson's point of view, provide gradually reduced margins or additional incentives for the buyer to make the purchase. In other words, the salesperson will whittle away at margins as slowly as possible until reaching the point at which the buyer is convinced to make the purchase.
This process has been honed by salespersons over the years to an art form, and salespeople are very much aware of which paths are easier to lead a customer down (and which are harder), as well as which paths result in higher (or lower) profits. However, the web does not offer the same ability for a salesperson to interactively monitor the sale and minimize their “loss” on the original sales price. Typically, e-commerce websites will offer incentives such as free shipping, a discounted price, additional items free (e.g., two-for-one) and the like as an incentive to make a sale. However, these incentives are offered to each customer randomly from the beginning, i.e., the website does not offer the incentive the way a fallback position as a live salesperson would, instead offering them uniformly to all, or a particular class of, customers.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to have available to a seller using an interactive sales medium (e.g., the World Wide Web, call centers, intelligent vending machines, etc.) the ability to identify the most likely paths for the interactive sales medium to be followed during the sales process and be able to provide gradually increasing rewards (or decreasing “punishments”) along these paths, thereby maximizing the margin on sales made in the interactive sales medium.